Enrique Vila-Matas was born in Barcelona in 1948 and has published a large body of narrative since his first work in 1973. He is a regular contributor to the press. He was awarded the Prize Ciudad de Barcelona and the prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger for Bartleby y companía. In 2001 he was given the Rómulo Gallegos Prize for El viaje vertical, the most coveted award for fiction in Latin America. El mal de Montano won the XXX Premio Herralde de Novela, the Critic's Award, in 2002, the Prix Médicis Etranger 2003 and the Premio Internazionale Ennio Flaiano.